One year Celebration for the Luanda Angola, Africa Mission!!

One Year Celebration of Angola, Luanda mission!!

At the Mission home...One year celebration!!

Month of July:
I miss you guys so much but I know that here is work here to do!  We are getting a lot more Elders now from Mozambique and as of now no new Americans have been called as they are still having problems with the Visas.  It looks like we will have 12 new Elders from Mozambique coming in!!

Elders, Magaia, Maezane and Figueiro from Mozambique!

Well Elder Ferguson are doing great things over here!  We are still in Terra Nova near Luanda.  We are focusing on references through the Members and also talking to people about the Book of Mormon.  This area is difficult for baptisms but we have met a lot of amazing people and have had the opportunity to reactivating some of the Members and they have come back to church.  We have been teaching Marliza and she has been coming to church and participating and really enjoys it.  We have a date set but she still needs to get married, which is all part of the process. There is something very special about her.  She is very intelligent and has an understanding of the Gospel.

Elder Ferguson and I

Streets of Luanda with Sister Merrill

We have also been working with a man from the Congo, he does not speak Portuguese very well so it is hard for him to come to church because of the language barrier but luckily there are a lot of people in the Branch who speak French.  His name Dom, which is gift in Portuguese.  He had all of the Hymns on the TV and he turned it up really loud and as he was leaving the house we could hear the Hymns throughout the neighborhood and it was really cool.  It brought a light into the neighborhood in Angola, super Awesome.
Riley that is so great that you learned a lot more about Joseph Smith at EFY ! We have been playing soccer as a branch on P-days and it is great because it brings everyone closer together.

Zone after playing Soccer

Elders of Luanda (me..far left)

This week we began to teach some new people.  Paulo, who is a Father with 2 kids and no job, they walk to church and sometimes take taxi's but he is waiting to have a marriage license to get baptized. He is a very humble man.  He just wants his family to have a great life and his wife too.  So we are trying to hook him up with some members who could help him get a job.  Then he will be able to afford to get married so that he can get baptized. 
The temperature is still very cool over here as we are in the winter season, and it has been very nice!
So a great experience that I had recently was with Carlos he came back into the church after he had been drinking for while.  We told him that we would pass by everyday to make sure that he was on the right track.  We had an awesome visit with him on Sunday and his family.  We talked about the Restoration and he began to tell his wife about the restoration and I talked about how the plates were translated and it was such an awesome lesson.  It was a great experience.
On another note our shopping center, Shoprite burnt down so now we will have to find another way to do our shopping. 
I miss running on the track with Brother Hedengren and Brother Huntsman and getting up at 5. I know there will be time for that later...but right now its my time to serve.
I love you all,
Elder Dunkley

And a silly one...the Elders of Angola..one year celebration!

Shorter emails now...full days...loving the work!

Our District in Angola!

Emails from month of June:
Wow everyone is so spread out throughout the world! Dad and Mason,  I won't be hearing from you for a couple of weeks when you get back from Philmont and backpacking. Jensen in Colorado and Mom and Riles in Spain and France! I loved Spain when I went.
So I have some bad news about my camera, my companion accidentally dropped it and broke it so no more pictures as of right now.
We had leadership training all day and I was able to meet some of the new Elders! One from Mozambique that is new and he is really cool and he has also learned to speak English already! He is so awesome and an Elder that I would love to serve with!  Elder Marqueza and I found 10 new solid investigators and we are building up the area.  We teach well together and I have felt the spirit more in the lessons already and it is wonderful.  I had a baptismal interview for the Elders with a man named Joao he was really cool and I was able to hear of his conversion story. We had a great interview and he was energetic and excited as he was explaining it.  He reminded me a lot of Jorge in Lubango.
On Sunday President Bautista asked it I could give a talk and I spoke on service and invited all the youth to prepare for missions.  The branch here is awesome and very strong.  It has the most Priesthood holders of all the branches and a lot of potential for growth.  We were able to take the sacrament to a blind lady in our branch after church and she was really funny and can tell stories forever, she is one of my favorite members to visit throughout the week.
2nd week of June:
We played soccer this morning and I am not feeling too good right now.  I am pretty sure I have something and I am very light headed. Other than that it was a very good week. We worked really hard and we are really tired. We had a lot of new investigators and also a lot of meetings with the Branch.  We had our Branch counsel meeting and that was great. We accomplished a lot and set goals to focus on.  The main goal was keeping the Sacrament meeting reverent and in the primary, helping the kids and the families stay active and helping them teach the Gospel within their homes.
We are teaching a man whose wife was run over and survived but does not have a job, which is difficult for their family.
Well I am feeling sick right now, hope everything is going well with my family around the world!
3rd & 4th weeks of June:
This week was awesome and family it sounds like it was great for you too! Dad and Mason it looked like Philmont was a great trip..it's like that here everyday hot and sweaty and sometimes no showers!  Mom and Riles I loved the photos of mom's mission in Barcelona and Paris! It looks so pretty!
This week was great and we had a lot of success and work! We set a baptismal date and we also played soccer against some Angolans and we wrecked and I am getting pretty good and it is such a blast. We also had a mission tournament and our team Terra Nova dominated we won all our games and I played Goalie and nothing passed me!

Missionaries after Soccer Tournament

We had a lot of lessons this week and my companion and I are working very hard and sweating a lot so that is a good sign!
There were baptisms this week in Cassaquel and all of the Elders went to KFC after..it was so good! I miss food from the states so much. We asked members for references through an example with Noah and the Arc which 8 people they thought to save and we they wrote their names and numbers so we have a lot of work ahead of us!
I am now with Elder Ferguson and I am stoked! I have been wanting to serve with him for awhile!
I don't have much time to write you this week, the internet time is almost up and it has been horrible internet today so hopefully I can get more in next week! Love you all so much!
Elder Dunkley